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“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors; we borrow it from our Children.”Ancient American Indian Proverb Civilitas successit barbarum Ubi Jus - Ibi Remedium ----> Equity sees that as done what ought to be done Equity will not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy - Equity delights in equality - One who seeks equity must do equity - Equity aids the vigilant, not those who slumber on their rights - Equity imputes an intent to fulfill an obligation - Equity acts in personam - Equity abhors a forfeiture - Equity does not require an idle gesture - He who comes into equity must come with clean hands - Equity delights to do justice and not by halves -Equity will not complete an imperfect gift - Equity will not allow a statute to be used as a cloak for fraud

Topic Summary

Posted by: AGelbert

With the release of proposed new and lower fuel-economy rules expected from the NHTSA by March 30, many eyes have turned to the powerful California Air Resources Board.

The state's pioneering role in reducing emissions and cutting air pollution predates even the existence of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That agency, now run by Scott Pruitt—an unabashed proponent of burning fossil fuels and a climate-science denier—will shortly issue its own related proposal for boosting the carbon-dioxide emissions allowed from road vehicles.

California, however, is not likely to accede to any radical increase in national emission standards.

Instead, it has a long-established legal right to establish its own, tougher emission rules, recognizing its pioneering role and the specially dire air-pollution conditions in the Los Angeles Basin.

Unless, that is, Pruitt reverses himself and decides to attack that right by rescinding the "waiver" to the national rules that permits that, one of a long series stretching back 30 years.

Posted by: AGelbert

A woman drove 100 miles to West Virginia's state capitol to testify against invasive drilling legislation, but was pulled off the House floor for highlighting how fossil fuel money corrupts politics, Ben Norton reports.

Posted by: AGelbert

Think of President Trump 🦀 and his administration as a den of thieves. There is, of course, the obvious thievery: what they will in the end, as with the recently passed tax “reform” bill, steal from ordinary citizens and offer as never-ending presents to the already staggeringly wealthy, among them the president himself (possible savings up to $15 million annually) and son-in-law Jared Kushner (possible savings: up to $12 million annually). According to the Congressional Budget Office, government cash reserves are already starting to fall faster than expected as a result of lost revenue from that bill. And the modest gains offered to ordinary taxpayers to give cover to a vast increase in the wealth of the top 1% will all sunset in the 2020s, while that bill’s corporate tax cuts are meant for eternity.

Think of such moves not as acts of petty theft, but as robbery of the most basic sort, since they involve stealing from the future to fund an increasingly plutocratic present. The Donald, in other words, isn’t just stealing from us but from our children and grandchildren. And if that’s true of his tax bill, it’s so much truer of his energy policies, as TomDispatch regular Michael Klare makes clear in a newsworthy manner today. That the president’s addiction to fossil fuels, his belief that freeing Big Energy from every form of restriction and regulation, is crucial to future American global domination has, Klare informs us, been embedded in the administration’s recently released National Security Strategy. In other words, the exploitation of fossil fuels in North America is now officially the heart and soul of the global policy-making of President Trump and his generals.

This isn’t just a matter of stealing future money from our children and grandchildren, or even of polluting the American environment in which they’ll grow up in a fashion familiar to anyone — like Donald Trump (or me) — who was raised in the 1950s. It’s a matter of stealing everything from them, including potentially the very environment that’s nurtured generation after generation of children on this planet for all the thousands of years of human history. If the president and his crew of climate deniers have their way and a fossil-fuelized version of energy “dominance” comes to rule our American world, while the path to alternative energy growth is crippled, then they will have stolen from the future in the most basic way imaginable for the comfort of just a few human beings now. As part of what can only be thought of as a semi-conscious plan to further warm the planet, President Trump’s energy policy will, without any doubt, represent not just thievery, not just the crime of this century, but terracide, the destruction of the planet itself, which will be the crime of any century. Keep that in mind as you read Klare’s piece today. Tom

Posted by: AGelbert

Agelbert NOTE: Please observe in that innocent sounding title below that NO Energy CEO from Solar, or wind or geothermal, etc. is actually included in the term, "U.S. Energy CEOs" (as in, "our loyal energy servants" ).

Ain't that just amazing how these exclusively FOSSIL FUEL related Corporate CEOs can be made to look like they cover the whole energy enchillada in the USA. When ya look at at that way, their "request" does not look like what it is (i.e. a GOVERNMENT HAND OUT funded by we-the people ).

These fine fellows love to talk about private enterprise and hard work and all that. The truth is that they are now, and they always have been, Welfare Queen polluting crooks and liars.

Of course their tool Trump will scramble to do their bidding by calling it a "jobs program" or the other standardised bit of bullshit (i.e. "it's for national security") the fossil fuelers love to trot out.

When Hurricane Harvey hit that area, I told you the Houston channel dredging costs would be massive and the Fossil Fuel Fascists would try to pass the buck for the fix to we-the-people. Now it is happening.

Tell me again about how "profitable" these fossil fuel corporations are so I can laugh in your embarrassingly ignorant face! THEY bring about the environmental hit on the channel through their polluting crap and then THEY don't have the money to fix what THEY mostly caused. And you call THAT a "profitable" business? What a nation of total suckers we are to keep allowing these welfare queen crooks to socialize the costs and privatize the profits.

The Theo T 🦕 departs the port of Corpus Christi with the first export cargo of US crude oil since the United States government repealed a 40 year ban on the export of crude oil in December 2015. Picture taken December 31, 2015. Photo credit: Port of Corpus Christi

CEOs of six well-known American energy companies signed a letter addressed to President Donald Trump on Wednesday in support of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project (CIP).

The CC Ship Channel Improvement Project will widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel to 530 feet, plus add additional barge shelves, to allow for two way vessel and barge traffic. It will also deepen the channel to 54 feet, which will allow for the safe and efficient passage of deep draft vessels, including Very Large Crude Carriers.

The Port of Corpus Christi and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers signed a Project Partnership Agreement for the project last October, but as of now the project still lacks the required funding needed to get off the ground.

The letter requests funding for the United States Army Corps of Engineers to deepen and widen the Corpus Christi Ship Channel in an effort to meet surging global demand for U.S. produced oil and natural gas.

Since the U.S. lifted the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports in late 2015, the Port of Corpus Christi has emerged as the largest export port of U.S. produced crude oil, and it is a major export hub for U.S. energy products.According to Energy Analysts International, the Port of Corpus Christi exported more than $6 billion of crude oil to U.S. trading partners in 2017, contributing to offset the United States trade deficit.

CEOs from Occidental Petroleum 🦖 Corporation, NuStar 🦖 Energy L.P., Buckeye 🦖 Partners, L.P., Howard 🦖 Energy Partners, Plains All American 🦖 Pipeline, and Cheniere 🦖 Energy, Inc. specifically asked that the President include $60 million for this project in his Fiscal Year 2019 Presidential Budget to begin Federal participation in its construction.

”Funding the CIP is an opportunity to invest in a national transportation asset that would allow our U.S. companies and the port to significantly increase our export capacity and help solidify the U.S. as a world energy leader,” the CEOs stated in their letter to President Trump.

“With widespread bipartisan support, we are confident you will find this project the most worthy of funding of all U.S. coastal navigation construction projects in the Nation,” said Sean Strawbridge, Port Corpus Christi CEO in an attached letter to President Trump. “In support of this project are U.S. energy companies who themselves are investing billions in infrastructure from the rich producing energy fields of West Texas to Corpus Christi. As the gateway to the global markets, Port Corpus Christi must ensure the infrastructure it oversees, namely the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, is capable of transporting safely and competitively the anticipated increased export volumes of crude oil, natural gas, and other petroleum products.At the center of the emergence of the United States as a dominant player in the global energy market is the Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project.”

Posted by: AGelbert

President Donald Trump—who remarked Tuesday that his administration ended the nonexistent "war on beautiful clean coal"—really wants to make fossil fuels 🦖 great again.

The White House plans to ask Congress to cut the Department of Energy's renewable energy and energy efficiency programs by a massive 72 percent in fiscal 2019, according to draft budget documents obtained by the Washington Post.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's (EERE) current spending level is set at $2.04 billion for the current fiscal year ending on Oct. 1. But the Trump administration will significantly lower that amount to $575.5 million for 2019, the Post reported.

The EERE supports the development of sustainable transportation, renewable power, and energy-efficient homes, buildings and manufacturing. Its SunShot Program has significantly reduced the total costs of solar energy.

The draft budget document calls for a number of cuts, including:

֍ A staff cut of 680 in the enacted 2017 budget to 450 in 2019.

֍ Reducing research in fuel efficient vehicles by 82 percent.

֍ Cutting research into bioenergy technologies by 82 percent.

֍ Shrinking research into solar energy technology by 78 percent.

This is the second year Trump has targeted clean energy spending. Last year, he proposed cutting the office's budget by two-thirds to $636.1 million, which Congress later rejected.

"It shows that we've made no inroads in terms of convincing the administration of our value, and if anything, our value based on these numbers has dropped," one EERE employee told the Post.

The reported spending cut comes not long after Trump's decision to impose steep tariffs on imported solar panels and related equipment—a move that experts say will stifle the current solar boom, harm the fastest-growing job sector in the U.S., and drag down clean energy innovation.

The draft document could change before the federal budget is due later this month, but as the Post pointed out, the budget "will mark a starting point for negotiations and offer a statement of intent and policy priorities."

In response, the White House🦀 told the newspaper: "We don't comment on any leaked or pre-decisional documents prior to the release of the official budget."

If there ever was a political class that deserved the guillotine, it's these clowns we have now.

That is not a subversive statement, just a casual observation.

If I said "Off with their heads!" that might be subversive, so I won't say that. These are dangerous times to speak out about anything.

Yep. I understand perfectly and agree. Our country is besieged by entrenched fascism.

How a 19th-Century Whaleship Can Save the 'White Working Class'

By Paul Street — The story of the Essex—rooted in racialized ignorance and fear—offers a valuable lesson in survival for contemporary America.

SNIPPET 1:

The third missing part of the (National Geographic) story has to do with North American black-white relations. Seven of the Essex’s sailors were black. None of these crew members were among the eight survivors. Five of the first six Essex crew members to die were black. The first four sailors to be devoured by their shipmates were black.

Philbrick ties this racially disparate outcome to the inferior diets of the black crew members—a reflection of racial discrimination in the United States.

SNIPPET 2:

Just three years before Melville published “Moby-Dick,” a 30-year-old communist philosopher named Karl Marx noted how the bourgeois system had “left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment.’ ” He famously observed: “It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”https://www.truthdig.com/articles/19th-century-whaleship-can-save-white-working-class/

People think unrestrained greed, institutional racism disguised as "exceptionalism" and Fossil Fuel Industry Fascist Corruption/Skullduggery (buy em' or bop em') of government for the nefarious PRIVATE oligarchic purpose of coopting US Foreign AND Domestic policies for profit over people and planet (i.e. murder and mayhem for empire) are not inextricably linked.

They are. There is a cause and effect chain that is as long term destructive as it is short term profitable. If we shut down ALL the Fossil Fuel Corporations in the USA and imprisoned the polluters everywhere, every single one of the social cancers I mentioned above would not disappear, but they would be severely hampered by lack of funding. Immorality isn't going away any time soon. BUT, profitable immorality would vanish.

Posted by: AGelbert

Strike another win for the fossil companies and another loss for the people. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the withdrawal of a key provision of the Clean Air Act. Following this move, hundreds of U.S. industrial facilities will be allowed to dramatically increase their emissions of the most toxic air pollutants.

Image credits: Petter Rudwall.The EPA has removed the “once-in always-in” policy under the Clean Air Act, which oversaw the regulation of hazardous air pollutant emissions for large-scale polluters. Under the new interpretation, major sources such as coal power plants can be reclassified, allowing them to follow different standards and emit much more than they were allowed to do before now.

This move is only the latest in a worrying series of environmental rollbacks issued by the Trump Administration. John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says this decision is among the most dangerous yet.

“This is among the most dangerous actions that the Trump EPA has taken yet against public health. Rolling back longstanding protections to allow the greatest increase in hazardous air pollutants in our nation’s history is unconscionable.”

“This move drastically weakens protective limits on air pollutants like arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins that cause cancer, brain damage, infertility, developmental problems and even death. And those harmed most would be nearby communities already suffering a legacy of pollution. NRDC will fight this terrible decision to unleash toxic pollutants with every available tool.”

The move highlights President Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to roll back federal environmental regulations. The withdrawal of this particular policy was sought by utilities, the petroleum industry, and other large-polluters. But in their zeal to roll back such regulations, they seem to have forgotten the best interests of citizens and focus overwhelmingly on corporate industrial interests. There is good reason to believe that while this will ease the regulatory burden on corporations, it will have massive consequences on the health of US citizens.

“The possibility seems very likely that some [downgraded] sources could actually increase their emissions as long as they don’t hit the cap,” said Janice Nolen, assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association, who added that changing these rules would remove an important tool for the public to enforce air quality laws.

In recent times, the EPA seems to have become the antithesis of what it stands for. Instead of ensuring environmental and health protection, under Scott Pruitt, the agency has become a fiefdom where industry lobbying — especially coming from coal and oil — can get pretty much everything it asks for. Scientists have been swiftly removed by industry reps, and just recently, an EPA representative said that the air is “a bit too clean for human health” — well, the recent rollback should certainly help with that.

I spent much of yesterday with some kids the world forgot. Young, remarkably sturdy and resilient, they can often be naïve and almost willfully gullible. They inhabit a world 🦖 that delights in tripping them up and watching them fall. They are Kabul’s Street Kids. 🌺 🌻 🌼 🌷

Every Friday morning, roughly 100 of these forgotten children sit in noisy – sometimes raucous - groups of seven to ten in a large, unheated classroom, discussing and brainstorming human rights - rights few in the international community seem to acknowledge they enjoy. On this thirty degree Kabul morning, some are in shirtsleeves; few have coats adequate for the weather. They are dirty. They are underfed. They are loved.

These kids are the smallest microcosm of Kabul's estimated 50,000 "street kids", boys and girls who dot the city’s already clogged roads selling balloons, "blessing" cars with incense, or lugging scales on which passers-by are invited to weigh themselves. They perform these demeaning tasks for a meager “fee” which helps their mothers buy food for their families.

agelbert • 11 minutes agoWhat Fossil Fuel Industry/Wall Street motivated war and mayhem has done to Afghanistan is as heartbreaking as it is criminal.

Quote

"Capitalist ideology claims that the world is perfectly ordered and everybody is in their place (i.e. everybody gets what they deserve). This self legitmating aspect of Capitalism 🦖 is Socially Catastrophic. This is the Victorian view of the world." Rob Urie - Author " Zen Economics"

Posted by: AGelbert

Pulling Back The Curtain On the Red Team, CPP and Pruitt’s Agenda for the EPA

As Rebecca Leber of Mother Jones pointed out this summer, Scott Pruitt and his closest cohorts at EPA are uniquely reluctant to engage with journalists outside the conservative echo chamber. The agency’s new approach to press has also been revealed to be rather stormy: see the press office’s bizarre interchanges with New York Times reporter Erik Lipton and attacks on the AP’s Michael Biesecker this fall.

Because getting past the wall of Heartland-and-Koch-ghostwritten talking points during an interview with an EPA official can be a bear, we like to highlight when a reporter’s pushed through. This month’s hat tip goes to Robin Bravender at E&E.

In December, Bravender wrote on a meeting between EPA air chief Bill Wehrum and the White House, in which she reported that the White House put the Red Team attack “on hold.” Then yesterday, E&E published an interview between Bravender and Wehrum that offers up some intel into the EPA’s otherwise opaque thinking on the Clean Power Plan repeal process, the Red Team, and Pruitt’s priorities for 2018.

As Wehrum told Bravender, the Red Team project is still in the “talking and thinking about it” stage. While Wehrum indicated the agency has no “current plans” for a Red Team, Pruitt “would very much like to initiate a process to at least solicit additional input on the scientific basis for the endangerment finding.”

While we’ve assumed the end goal of the Red Team is overturning the endangerment finding, Wehrum’s statements confirm that this supposedly good faith examination of the science has a very specific policy goal. The endangerment finding is the White Whale for deniers. Whether Pruitt is just placating these tireless Ahabs with this seemingly unending “talking and thinking about it” stage or whether he really charts a course to somehow sail around the mountain of scientific evidence underpinning the finding is yet to be seen.

What we do know is that either way, he’ll be doing what he can to roll back climate protections. On the Clean Power Plan, Wehrum told Bravender that the EPA is “setting out a range of possible outcomes” for repealing and replacing. But when asked specifically about the inside-the-fence approach that we’ve discussed before, Wehrum indicated “that's pretty much what [the Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is] all about.”

Beyond that, Wehrum tips the EPA’s hand on another new regulation agency leadership is targeting, saying a priority for 2018 is to “take a hard look at” the rule requiring oil and gas drilling companies to limit methane and ozone-causing emissions.

Going beyond merely tweaking the rule to make it more palatable for the fossil fuel industry, Wehrum thinks they will “take a hard look at whether it really is appropriate to regulate methane under that rule.” (Quick catch up: an August ‘17 ruling of the D.C. Circuit court put the rule in effect, at least until Pruitt successfully finalizes a replacement.)

A well-deserved kudos to Bravender for managing to get the EPA to tip its hand, even just so slightly, and letting us know what our public servants are planning to do in the coming year. Keep up the good work, along with all the other great reporters out there. When it comes to Pruitt’s wall of secrecy at the EPA, we trust the press to eventually Wehrum down.

President Obama put the safety rules in place late last year, after six years of analysis following the 2010 BP Plc oil spill, in which a well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico. The proposed changes include revisions to safety system design requirements and equipment failure reporting requirements.

Environmentalists blasted the move, saying it put oceans and wildlife at risk.

Quote

“By tossing aside the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Trump is putting our coasts and wildlife at risk of more deadly oil spills,” Miyoko Sakashita, director of the oceans program at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “Reversing offshore safety rules isn’t just deregulation, it’s willful ignorance.”

Posted by: AGelbert

In part one of this article, I took a closer look at the oral arguments in the latest episode of Juliana v. United States, and identified two questions that were raised during the orals that bear further consideration:

The first was: who would prevail in the event of a conflict between the findings of the District Court and the Trump administration?

More specifically:

What if: The District Court finds climate change harmful to the health of the plaintiffs and a violation of their constitutional rights. BUT, the Administrationfinds climate change a hoax or of a much-diminished magnitude than currently thought after its current reconsideration of the Clean Power Plan (CPP)?

It is at least an even bet Administrator Pruitt will prevail upon Trumpto approve rescission or a substantial watering of the endangerment finding as well.

SNIPPET 2:

Time and Nature wait for no one. Failing to contain global warming threatens the health and well-being of current generations. Most importantly, it steals the opportunities of future generations to live long and prosper. These are the Juliana’s plaintiffs.

The raw hostility to climate science and the depth of enmity exhibited by Trump and company is not to be seen merely in their efforts to unwind the environmental legacies of Nixon, Carter, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama. It is found in their purging them from consciousness—to deny their reason for being and very existence.

The darkest irony of all is the one time the Administration seems content to agree that climate change is bad for America and is the product of harmful human emissions is the time when their outright dismissal of scientific fact might defeat an open and consequential debate. A meaningful proceeding in the only remaining forum able to prompt constructive action.

Judge Coffin is right: the judicial forum is particularly well-suited for the resolution of factual and expert scientific disputes, providing an opportunity for all parties to present evidence, under oath and subject to cross-examination in a process that is public, open, and on the record.

Denial not debate is the watchword of this President and his agents . To date, the legal victories of climate defenders have been mostly the consequence of an administration indifferent to the established rule of law.

What distinguishes Juliana v. U.S. from all the cases that have gone before is the opportunity it offers to elevate environmental protection to a Constitutional right—equal to the right to vote or to love and to marry whomever one chooses. The inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness and opportunities to thrive and to prosper. A right not easily abridged or made a victim of political whims.

Agelbert NOTE: Themens rea modus operandi of Trump and his other Fossil Fuel bought and paid for Toadies behind the effort to purge environmental legacies from consciousness to the point of denying their reason for being and very existence is TEXTBOOK 1984 (the book written by Orwell about a cruel mind twisting dictatorship that forced people to deny reality - the origin of the term "Orwellian") strategy (See: EngSoc language purging). I do not think they will be successful, simply because Catastrophic Climate Change will continue to be too much in our faces to pretend it is not there.

But, I do think the Trumpers will delay and hamper meaningful action to mitigate Catastrophic Climate Change as long as they are in power. If you love your children and want a future for them where they inherit a viable biosphere, please do your part to get those children/biosphere murderers out of government as soon as possible. Please pass this on. We may be out of time already but we have to keep doing what is right, come hell or high water.

Trump and his wrecking crew want YOU TO IGNORE all of the following IRREFUTABLE empirical evidence that our environment is WORSENING BECAUSE OF CONTNUALLY INCREASING POLLUTION FROM THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY and other polluters. ALL the following GOVERNMENT data will soon be erased by Trump and his wrecking crew in Orwellian mindfork fashion to convince you that these THREATS to your health are "not real" and Renewable Energy is "no big deal". DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS ATROCITY! Save this and pass it on.

Posted by: AGelbert

‘The same tax bill that wrecked Obamacare and is taking a bite out of your paycheck has giveaways to Exxon—because Republicans care about Exxon, not you. Time to vote them out!’

What the GOP Tax Bill Means for Climate, Energy, and the Environment

Brian Kahn

December 19, 2017 2:47pm Filed to: DEATH AND TAXES

SNIPPET:

The tax bill is setup to kick people while they’re down . While people who have lost everything (or close to it) from wildfires and hurricanes this year will be able to write off those losses on taxes, future disaster victims won’t be in the same boat.

The personal casualty loss deduction allows victims to write off losses that are greater than 10 percent of a person’s adjusted gross income. Taxpayers were able to deduct $1.6 billion in losses from natural disasters in 2015.

The House bill canned it entirely, but the Senate bill kept the deduction in place if a federal disaster is declared, which is how the final bill reads. For people who suffer from tornadoes, hurricanes or large fires, that’s (relatively) good news. But smaller fires or weather disasters may slip through the cracks.

Posted by: AGelbert

Scott Pruitt’s long-awaited first appearance before the House committee that oversees the EPA was, somehow, both incredibly boring and richly informative. While Pruitt delivered his well-honed lawyer act like the seasoned professional he is, dodging and pivoting like a champ, there were a few notable fumbles in his performance.

For example, when Florida Representative Kathy Castor questioned Pruitt about his refusal to recuse himself from decisions involving both his donors and his previous co-litigants, Pruitt refused to answer. He instead deferred to the EPA’s ethics office, who apparently allow him to work on suits he was part of before becoming administrator. Implied conflicts of interest, Pruitt seemed to infer, aren’t a valid reason for recusal if the EPA ethics office doesn’t mandate it.

However, when pressed about his reforms to the EPA science boards, Pruitt’s response was that the removal of EPA grant recipients was to prevent “a perception or appearance of a lack of independence.” Who was making those complaints? Why, the tobacco and fossil fuel industries of course! And whose favorite researchers have gotten added to the board? Those same industries, whose products are regulated by the EPA.

So Pruitt claims replacing independent advisors with industry-funded advisors is necessary to prevent the EPA from appearing biased. But when it comes to Pruitt and his appointees working on cases and decisions they were once involved in, apparently the appearance of a lack of independence doesn’t matter. Even ignoring the fact industry scientists are the opposite of independent, Pruitt’s own standard for avoiding the appearance of impropriety is conveniently inconsistent.

As E&E’s Scott Waldman described in his roundup of the hearing, Pruitt also contradicted the very arguments the people he’s brought onto those advisory boards make about the dangers of particulate matter. Responding to California Rep. Raul Ruiz, Pruitt acknowledged the health benefits to reducing particulate matter pollution. But the Clean Power Plan repeal’s economic justification hinges on zeroing out those benefits to skew the cost-benefit analysis.

Pruitt also said a little more about the Endangerment finding than he has before, making the lawyerly process argument that by referring to the IPCC reports, the EPA committed a “breach of process.” But as Chelsea Harvey at E&E reports, that exact argument was used in a 2012 case, Coalition for Responsible Regulation Inc. v. EPA.

It lost. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decision ruled it “little more than a semantic trick,” saying the "EPA is not required to re-prove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question."

Although Pruitt claims a deference to the “rule of law,” (even running a group with that in its name before moving to the EPA) apparently the rule of law doesn’t count when industry lost.

Although Pruitt claims particulate matter pollution is a health threat, his own CPP repeal math doesn’t include it.

Although Pruitt claims the appearance of a conflict of interest warrants removing advisors to the EPA, that same concern doesn’t extend to his own conflicts, or of those he’s bringing into the EPA.

At this point, if Pruitt claimed he wasn’t a robot controlled by polluting industries, we’d want to check that secret superfluous $25,000 phone booth for charging cables and a remote control interface.

Posted by: AGelbert

We started the week with a look at Pruitt’s industry-friendly contradictions--but we hardly scratched the surface yesterday.

For example, the New York Times reported on Sunday how Pruitt’s EPA has taken a step back from actually enforcing air and water pollution laws. Despite Pruitt’s professed dedication to enforcing the laws, his EPA has started a third fewer cases than Obama’s EPA by nine months in, and only a quarter as many as George W. Bush’s EPA in the same timeframe. This math makes it clear that Pruitt is giving polluters a pass, despite his claim that he doesn’t “hang with polluters; I prosecute them.” Take even the most cursory look under his whole down-home country lawyer shtick, and his true colors are revealed.

But Pruitt is far from the only Trump advisor palling around with polluters instead of regulating them. Last week, In These Times ran photos of a meeting between Energy Secretary Rick Perry and coal man Bob Murray in advance of Perry’s coal-friendly FERC proposal, after Murray vehemently denied he had influence over the plan. The Washington Post’s Steve Mufson expands on this reporting with his own piece last Friday about the plan that comes “straight from coal country.” Nora Brownell, Former FERC committee member appointed by George W. Bush, tells the Post that the plan is “cash for cronies.”

And then there’s Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior. In an op-ed for CNN last week, Zinke wrote that the decision to dramatically shrink national monuments was a result of “prioritizing the voice of the people over that of the special interest groups.” Unfortunately for Zinke, the three million public comments filed--99% in support of the monuments and against shrinking them--undercut this claim. Who is in support of Zinke’s move to minimize? Well we can’t say for sure, but here’s a Washington Post headline with a clue: “Areas cut out of Utah monuments are rich in oil, coal, uranium.”

And hey, another clue in another Post headline: “Uranium firm urged Trump officials to shrink Bears Ears National Monument.” As Juliet Eilperin reported this weekend, a anium company lobbied and met with Zinke about the decision to downsize. Though Zinke told reporters there’s no mine within the monument, the new shrunk size of Bears Ears means significant uranium deposits are now no longer off-limits to industry.

Zinke hasn’t just been busy penning op-eds: he and the House Natural Resource Committee took some time to hit back at Patagonia’s criticism of the monument downsizing. But criticizing an American company for expressing its first amendment right to free speech is, in the words of former White House ethics officer Walter Shaub, “wildly inappropriate.”

Sure, this administration may be lawless and constantly capitulating to polluters and profiteers. But at least they’re down-home populists, in touch with nature and the common man, right? All of Zinke’s horseback-riding and cowboy-hat-wearing seems to suggest that he’s just a simple country boy.

That facade may be a little too thin for Zinke’s liking. In an interview with Outside Magazine published last week, Zinke presents himself as a Teddy Roosevelt conservationist and seasoned fisher, talking with reporter Elliot Woods while standing in a river, rod in hand. Unfortunately for Zinke, he’s no Teddy, and on top of that Woods seems to be a much better fisherman than the Secretary of the Interior, noting at the end of the piece that Zinke was having some trouble casting because he rigged his reel backwards.

And last May, when Zinke spent thousands in public money to helicopter out to a horse-riding session with Mike Pence, Zinke wore his cowboy hat backwards. This is apparently a frequent mistake: the Sierra Club pointed out that in the shot of Zinke exiting Air Force One for last week’s announcement, his hat was again on backwards.

Now we don’t expect Trump or his fan base to get all that upset about all these handouts to polluters at the public’s expense. But a faux-pas like this, with a man incapable of properly wearing his hat?

Posted by: AGelbert

The American Petroleum Institute has crafted a letter, signed by 84 members of Congress, suggesting that anti-pipeline activists should be charged with domestic terrorism. DeSmog Blog's Steve Horn says it's just one of many instances of a government-industry alliance against green activists

It REALLY WAS a good ride, not for you and me, but for TPTB. So expect them to do WHATEVER to prolong their RIDE, against all scientific evidence that EXPLOITATION WITHOUT REFLECTION OF FELLOW EARTHLINGS OF ALL SPECIES (not just humans) AND THE BIOSPHERE FOR PROFIT OVER PLANET is deleterious (i.e. SUICIDAL/abysmally STUPID) to the Homo SAP species.

The Fossil Fuelers DID THE Clean Energy Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting CRIME, but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID DOING THE TIME or PAYING THE FINE! Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on! [/move

Posted by: AGelbert

Outside interests' brisk takeover of the EPA continued Thursday as the Senate confirmed a controversial lobbyists' nomination and Scott Pruitt unveiled his latest gift to industry. William Wehrum , whose past client list includes the American Petroleum Institute and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, will lead the Office of Air and Radiation following a party-line vote in the Senate Thursday.

The Bush White House withdrew Wehrum's nomination for the position in 2006, after it became clear the Senate would not confirm his nomination, and Wehrum went on to sue the EPA 31 times since 2008 to undermine the Clean Air Act.

Meanwhile, the EPA unveiled a proposal to rescind an Obama-era emissions rule on older trucks, which is backed by trucking groups and engine manufacturers. The rollback comes following a May meeting between Pruitt and a major manufacturer of truck equipment that would be negatively impacted by the rule.

Posted by: AGelbert

In this second installment of special coverage Hurricane Harvey's aftermath, Abby Martin explores how the petrochemical industry dominates the city and why its low-income, Black and Latino areas are in the highest-risk areas for flooding and pollution, earning them the name "sacrifice zones." Watch more on teleSUR

Posted by: AGelbert

New EPA advisor believes air is “a little too clean for optimum health”

LAST UPDATED ON NOVEMBER 6TH, 2017 AT 9:02 PM BY MIHAI ANDREI E-mail author

SNIPPET:

Unfortunately, it seems like this administration is hellbent on making the EPA an anti-scientific, destructive organization. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has replaced 22 members of the Science Advisory Board with industry reps and members of state regulatory agencies. Actually, to be fair, one of them is technically a scientist. The one academic member, Robert Phallen, is mostly known for his statement that “modern air is a little too clean for optimal health.”

Posted by: AGelbert

The way of life of the Gwich’in people, who have depended on the caribou of the Arctic Refuge for millennia, is threatened by plans for oil drilling. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

UPDATE, October 11, 2017: The House has approved a budget resolution that paves the way for drilling in the Arctic Refuge, and soon the Senate is expected to vote. This represents one of the greatest legislative threats facing the Arctic Refuge in years. Please take a moment to TAKE ACTION by contacting your Congressional representatives and urging them to protect the Arctic Refuge.

September 25, 2017: Summer in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge doesn’t last for long, but in that brief burst, millions of migratory birds flock to this vast wilderness expanse from every direction. Taking wing from Asia, South America, Africa, Antarctica and all 50 U.S. states, they congregate to nest in the refuge, a national treasure that’s one of the last wild, intact landscapes on the planet. Caribou, polar bears, Arctic foxes and wolverines roam the vast expanse, which spans 19.6 million acres in Northeast Alaska.

The 1.5-million acre coastal plain within the refuge is a biologically rich swath that borders the Beaufort Sea. It’s considered sacred by the indigenous Gwich’in people, whose way of life has for millennia depended on the caribou that calve there each summer.

An Alaskan tundra wolf leaps through the blowing snow in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. TROUTNUT/GETTY IMAGES

For years, Earthjustice has partnered with a diverse coalition of groups to protect the refuge from oil and gas development. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

These baby tree sparrows are some of the millions of birds that call the Arctic Refuge home. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

Legal policy has prohibited new oil exploration for the last 35 years in this pristine wilderness area. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

Herds of caribou roam the vast expanse of the Arctic Refuge, which spans 19.6 million acres in northeast Alaska. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

For decades, the Arctic Refuge and its coastal plain have been at the center of a political tug-of-war over fossil fuel extraction. Earthjustice has long partnered with a diverse coalition of groups on the side of protecting the refuge from oil and gas development. That battle reignited last week with news that the Trump administration is planning an attack on laws protecting the refuge, in order to accelerate oil drilling on the plain.

As the Washington Post revealed, the acting director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service instructed the agency’s Alaska regional director in an August memo to change a rule on “exploratory activity.” This precursor to oil drilling includes ear-piercing seismic blasting and underground shock waves to identify where oil deposits may lie.

The regional director was told to erase the part of the rule spelling out that these harmful exploratory tests were only allowed from Oct. 1, 1984 until May 31, 1986. This one shady little edit flies in the face of 35 years of established legal policy barring new oil exploration in the pristine wilderness area, throwing the biological heart of the refuge into immediate peril.

Quote

“We cannot and should not play politics with our national heritage, just to line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.”

Trump’s political appointees appear to be orchestrating this assault on the Arctic Refuge. Former commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Natural Resources, Joe Balash , who was nominated to a high-ranking Interior post, has submitted multiple proposals to conduct harmful seismic exploration on the Coastal Plain. And David Bernhardt, who Trump appointed to the second-highest position at Interior, represented the state of Alaska in a lawsuit in 2014 against the Interior Department to allow for seismic testing in the coastal plain, but lost. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that is suddenly pressuring for this rule change, answers to Interior.

Under federal law, only Congress can allow drilling in the refuge, and a 1980 law protects the coastal plain from oil and gas leasing and development. Yet other efforts that could jeopardize the refuge are moving forward simultaneously in Congress.

The House budget resolution for FY 2018 includes provisions that will be used to advance drilling in the refuge, signaling an attempt by congressional allies of the oil industry to insert a highly controversial policy issue into must-pass budget legislation. Meanwhile, the refuge isn’t the only Arctic landscape in the oil and gas industry’s sights. Earthjustice is currently opposing Arctic drilling proposals on multiple fronts, including offshore territories and public lands in the western Arctic.

Oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge threatens the habitats of a wide range of wildlife, including polar bears, Arctic foxes and wolverines. SARKOPHOTO/GETTY IMAGES

Secretary Zinke swears in David Bernhardt as the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. PHOTO COURTESY OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

Trump’s political appointees have submitted multiple proposals to conduct harmful seismic exploration on the Coastal Plain of the refuge.PHOTO COURTESY OF US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

This beautiful, expansive Arctic landscape is too precious not to protect from the oil industry’s destructive plans to drill. ERIC RORER/ISTOCK

Even as cries of “drill, baby, drill” seem to be echoing off the walls of smoky backrooms from Alaska to D.C. , one might be surprised to learn that there isn’t actually any shortage of oil. Supplies have reached historic highs, and gas prices have dipped – which means the industry has little to gain financially by opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

“The Arctic Refuge is just too special to drill for oil and gas that we don’t need and should be kept in the ground,” says Earthjustice Associate Legislative Counsel Marissa Knodel. “For 30 years, Congress has respected the will of the vast majority of American people, who want to protect the Arctic Refuge. Drilling there should be excluded from any budget proposal. We cannot and should not play politics with our national heritage, just to line the pockets of the oil and gas industry.”

Agelbert NOTE: For those who think drilling in the (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) ANWR is 'no big deal', please watch the video below to learn why you DO NOT want the ANWR trashed by the Fossil Fuelers (see: When they came for the polar bears, you did nothing...).

The Fossil Fuelers DID THE Clean Energy Inventions suppressing, Climate Trashing, human health depleting CRIME, but since they have ALWAYS BEEN liars and conscience free crooks, they are trying to AVOID DOING THE TIME or PAYING THE FINE! Don't let them get away with it! Pass it on!

A California judge dismissed the charges from logging giant Resolute and awarded Greenpeace and other defendants their attorneys' fees. 'It could not have gone any better,' says Todd Paglia, executive director of Stand.earth and a defendant in the case

Posted by: AGelbert

James Ratcliffe , the billionaire owner of the chemical giant Ineos Corporation, is pushing for a dangerous pipeline through Pennsylvania, while the company quietly works to start fracking operations in Scotland and the UK, says Food & Water Watch's Patrick Woodall

Posted by: AGelbert

31, 27, 10, 1, 0 & 0; 78; 20,000,000,000; 0.0007%. While they might not look like much at first, these numbers represent so much that’s wrong with the Trump administration.

First: 31, 27, 10, 1, 0 & 0. Delaware Senator Tom Carper listed these as the reasons he opposes Trump’s nomination of former Bush-era EPA employee William Wehrum for assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Air and Regulation. NRDC’s John Walke tweeted an explanation of Carper’s reasoning in an impressive Twitter thread on the hearing: 31 is the number of times in the last decade that Wehrum has sued the EPA. 27 is the number of times that the EPA clean air office, under Wehrum, lost lawsuits over weakened protections. 10 is the number of years children were needlessly exposed to toxic pollution, courtesy of Wehrum’s illegal delays on regulations. 1 is the number of times Wehrum appears to have lifted language verbatim from his former law firm straight into EPA rulemaking. 0 is the number of times Wehrum fought for stronger public health protections in court after leaving the EPA. 0 is also the number of times Wehrum promised to protect public health in a private meeting with Senator Carper. Though it’s quite a bit, it’s still a pretty succinct summary of the talentTrump is tapping to drain the swamp.

Next up, 78. That’s the number of ways the Trump administration has sold out public health and lands to private interests, as compiled by the Center for American Progress. They’ll keep updating the page, so this number can only keep going up.

Finally, the smallest figure: 0.0007%. That’s percent of grid down time in the last five years that can be attributed to fuel supply problems, according to Rhodium Group research. With that miniscule percentage, it’s even more clear that Rick Perry’s use of fuel supply as justification to lavish money on coal and nuclear plants is just an excuse. To arrive at that figure, Rhodium went through the records of customer-hours of major electricity disruptions between 2012 and 2016, and separated the hours out by what caused the outage. The overwhelming majority of outages were due to extreme weather, mainly knocking down power lines. Of the 3.4 billion customer-hours of lost power, only 2,815 hours were due to supply problems--just 0.0007%. Of that pittance, 2,333 hours were caused by a single event in Minnesota in 2014, which involved a coal plant.

But if you think these numbers will add up to any change among the divided morons in the Trump administration, well... we wouldn’t count on it.

Posted by: AGelbert

Let’s say you live in Florida. Yes, I know, that requires us to assume you are pretty oblivious to the rising seas and corrosive stupidity assailing the state from every direction, but let’s just say you live in Florida. No offense.

You’re smart enough to know that life in Hurricane Alley could get difficult, and you live after all in the Sunshine State, so you installed solar panels on your roof, enough to run your house, just in case. Now, we just assumed you were dense enough to choose to live in Florida , so let’s assume, on the other side of the ledger, that you are smart enough to have avoided some of the major pitfalls of the rooftop solar business.

Number one, you avoided the trap of the new solar panels with the built-in inverters. Designed for and marketed to the accountants among us, who see solar panels primarily as a way to reduce power bills, these new-age solar panels save you the trouble of buying and installing a separate inverter to bump the output from 12 volts — what the panels produce — to 120 volts — what most things in your house require.

You didn’t do that because it gradually dawned on you — they never tell you this up front — that the panels require power from the grid to run the inverters. Know what that means? In a power outage, your new solar panels are useless.* When the grid is down, your panels will churn out tons of 12 volt current that you can’t use because you can’t plug your panels into the grid. Now, because you’re smart about these things, you didn’t buy the new solar panels. To you, saving a few bucks by selling your excess solar-panel output to the power company is not as important as saving your butt in an emergency.

Okay, so far so good. But this is where you run into Florida Power and Light(FPL), the state’s monopolistic and avaricious electric utility company. Snag #1: If you install more than 10 kilowatts worth of solar panels, you must pay FPL up to $1,000 for the privilege. Not for the panels, not for anything but the privilege. Why? Because they can.

Snag #2:You are not going to be allowed to go off the grid. Even if you have installed enough solar power to run your house and you want to do it, you are required by law to connect your system to the grid. And you have to pay a monthly fee for that privilege, too.

If you are getting the impression that FPL regulates Florida state government, and not the other way around, you’re getting the right picture. FPL made more than a billion dollars in profits last year, and that’s after spending millions to induce lawmakers to hobble solar panel owners.

(That’s not all the lobbyists do, of course. After Hurricane Wilma killed the power to 75 per cent of FPL’s customers, the state government girded it legislative loins and insisted that the utility do better next time. The lobbyists put out all the fires with assurances that FPL had “hardened” the grid against hurricane damage and would do much better next time. Next time was Wilma. This time, 90 per cent of FPL’s customers lost power. )

So let’s say you’re one of them, but this time it’s different for you. You’ve spent over $30,000 on a solar system, and your roof is generating all the power you need. You have a switch that disconnects your system from the grid and allows you to use the power you are making while the grid is down.

Snag #3, aka The Big One: You are prohibited by lawfrom throwing that switch. That’s right. The law, written by FPL, requires you to install the switch and forbids you to use it. The rationale is that you might accidentally back-feed the grid and shock a lineman. You live in Florida, after all, and might not be able to distinguish between the label that says “ON” and the one that says “OFF.”

This is the state that will not permit anyone in government to use the words “climate change,” and that ignores the rising seas that are intruding at high tide into the streets of Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and countless coastal developments.

*Agelbert NOTE: There is an OFF GRID work around for the solar panel with micro-inverters that require grid power. Tom Lewis correctly takes Floridians to task for their stupid fascist laws and the stupidity of a government not allowed to talk about the in-your-face climate change destroying their state, but he forgot to mention that solar panels with individual micro-inverters are far more efficient than a system with a single large inverter because large inverters reduce the output from the ENTIRE system of panels when a SINGLE panel is in partial or complete shade. Micro-inverters reduce power only from the shaded panel while the others are getting the maximum into your battery and/or appliances.

Finally, there is no way in God's good Earth that the Republican Fossil fuel and Nuclear power defending government of Florida is going to be able to enforce the "law" requiring that you not throw that switch.

VERY SOON, ANOTHER hurricane (see NHC web site) is headed to Florida, this time near the Capital of Tallahassee (God must have heard Tom Lewis. ) . Let's see how many people avoid "throwing that switch" when they ain't got no juice from the grid. They HAVE to throw the switch to isolate house power from the grid or some workman on a pole restoring power after the storm will be fried to death. Therefore, the Florida polluter welfare queen defending "law" is unenforceable in a court of law.